BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz plans an executive committee meeting of his centre-right CDU on Sunday, straight after two state elections are held, to seek assurances he has his party's continued support.

The high-stakes meeting will come amid growing speculation Merz, 70, could face a challenge from within his CDU/CSU camp after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) defeated his party in a recent state poll.

Merz on Tuesday scrapped a planned trip to New York, where he was due to take part in the UN general debate, so he could attend the party meeting.

 

The Christian Democratic Union's executive committee will get together after Sunday's votes in the city-state of Berlin and the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a party spokeswoman said.

 

Polling suggests the CDU is tightly matched with the far-left Die Linke in Berlin, and could score as little as seven percent in the other vote, while the AfD is expected to surge again in both elections.

 

According to a Forsa institute poll this week, only 10 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the chancellor's performance.

Merz, who is also CDU chairman, took power in May last year, vowing to reboot the stagnant economy, rearm Germany against a hostile Russia, limit irregular immigration and push other reforms to halt the rise of the AfD.

But the far-right party now outpolls his CDU at the national level and demolished it by a margin of almost 44-17 per cent in September 6 elections in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.

'Difficult' position

 

Merz has long faced poor personal approval ratings and, more recently, growing internal party criticism, fuelling speculation that influential CDU state-level politicians might be plotting to oust him.

 

Names of hopefuls for the top job that have been floated include Hendrik Wuest, state premier of populous North Rhine-Westphalia, and Markus Soeder, the Bavarian state premier and head of the CSU, the regional sister party of the CDU.

 

In a speech Tuesday, Merz reiterated that -- despite the strong headwinds -- he is determined to push on with sweeping economic and social welfare reforms agreed with junior coalition partners the Social Democrats.

"The bitter election result of September 6 in Saxony-Anhalt changes nothing in this regard," Merz said.

Political scientist Oliver Lembcke of Ruhr University Bochum told AFP that the recent developments inside the CDU show that even Merz himself "apparently regards an early end to his chancellorship as a real possibility".

"That is why Merz is trying to rally support, particularly from influential state premiers," Lembcke said.

"If they do not demonstratively express their confidence in him after the elections, his position will become very difficult."